, 1887-04-21
JOAQUIN MILLER.
4E WRITES ABOUT SEALS AND
SEAL ROCK.
The beginnings of the Alaska Fur Com
Pany-Killins of the King of Seals by
Parallel,
Special Correspondence

Parallel.
Special Correspondence
SAN FRANCISCO, March Z.
Do not cOnfound the California seal with
the seal of Alaska. They are not much un-
IKE, however, except i'll their coats But
dis is great difference in the commercial
world. They have much the same habits
ind at little distance you cannot distinguish
them apart. Their coats are also nearly of
the sane color. They look black when they
first climb up out of the water and
glisten i'll the sun as if they had been
oiled. But so soon as they become dry
they ere quite gray, or at least a
very light brown. Not long ago an English
"wr.ter Of books published the statement
that we have two kinds of seal here on our
famous Seal Rock, in the edge of the Pacific
ocean, He determined that one kind was
very black and the other very gray He
should merely have said that one was very
wet and the other very dry.
l reckon there are few ladies who know
That their seal skin coats have an artificial
color. Until recently all seal skins were
colored in London. And the art was a great
secret until the Alaska Fur company sent
some men there to find employment and learn
the process.
This Alaska Fur company is of it
sa!f a marvel, both in its concep-
.inn and its accomplishment 1t has
attained great wealth and Importance, and,
r'lcve, in an entirely honorable way. For it
al fox many years great and good man at
lis head-the late Senator Miller, of Califor-
nia. was with Gen. Miller in Rome when
!'e vas first rounding bis company into per-
:. csi "a: AMI he then and there pointed out to
IA ,h,r, tiIsir great fortune would lie. Let
.ile explain, aud show how nearly / came
10 e.s rich man; for might have had
IN ~ shares. THE factS are, the great Hud-
soI.N Bay company had sold all their
s7si skiGs - the dyeing company of
Is4I!ua for about fifty years ahead at
4 very low figure. Bat seal skins meantime
usIi tiJ'ii Id and quadrupled in value. And
Is tie EIsl~ou Bay company bought nearly
all their seal skins of the Indians all that q
rav company had 10 10 was to pay double
,ite Iittance that the oil company was paying
er.l 50 tIke all the skins. Meantime the
Hfui>On Bay company could not well pay
more tlan it was already paying because. as
u; | before, it had contracted all its skins
Iae London Dyeing company. And SO
.i.''. Miller, having bought the exclusive
NIT to the seal fisheries in Alaska of the
UEite,i States-fOr about 81 900, 600 year,
brlevc-he had only to reach out his
'g,,,l toward Alaska each day and find it
Ir:,ped full of gold.
s*x
Ben Butler is seen no more here now on the
summit of Seal Rock Let me rise up and
explain this. During the war; and for aught
[ know for long time before, there was
always seen on the top of Seal Rock one tre-
uIendpuSly large sea lion; his huge, bald head
glisteliing in the sun as he held it high above
the stormy seas about him and roared and
roareI above the loudest roar of the sea. His
great moustache, about two feet long, waved
"a the wind; and as he would wag his head
ai.I turn this way and that, as if addressing
-nrHs great Charleston convention, or some
otn,.r nominating AMI president making place,
ta. people said Ben Butler!
] suppose million people have looked with
adm: alton AMI delight on this kingly old
fellow on his high and stormy throne out
there a hundred yards in the surging sea dur
ing the last quarter of a century. But l fear
thev will never have that pleasure any more
now. p. T. Barnums bid of S1OO,0 for his
capture and delivery is henceforth of no
avail, for we all fear that he has gone the
way Of all flesh and all fish. The calamity
for it !, a real calamity-came about i'll this
uey-a thing that could hardly happen again
iii the course of a million of years:
\ ship, carrying along with its other things
about 100 tons of giant powder and dynamite
on its third unsuccessful effort TO pass out of
uor, and over the bar in fog, had been
abandoned by captain and crew to the
waves; and as fate would have it, the
sim dr;ftaI right across the Golden Gate and
stfaI.siit againSt Seal Rock, where kingly and
ip:psii1 1us old Ben Butler sat on the summit
AMI rolred to the roaring waters below. The
ship .1Irged and groaned and thrashed and
thundered against the great uplifted rocks
until at last the thing exploded. The MAIN
mast was found inland, but neither ship nor
Ben Butler have been seen or heard from since
/ have given attention to this because it was
one of the most astounding things that ever
happsn6d. There is nothing in all the weird
work of Victor Hugo quite so terrible, or
nearly so improbable, as the fact of this shin
drifting for miles and miles straight across
the mouth of the Golden Gate, and straight
sea with great big Ben Butler throned and
roaring on the summit of it!
Yuu must know there were thousands of
lesser seal all about the lower parts of the
,-aat S Ssal Rock, many OF them as big as COWS.
III all OF them twice as clumsy; but not one
OF sham all was ever permitted to land on the
pinnacle ami roar from the summit of it. Mr.
Sutrn, the ablest engineer of this age, if Eu-
rope is to believed, says he thought the world
had come to an end when the explosion took
place But what Ben Butler thought as he
sat there with his huge head in the air ami
his long gray mustache tangled in the very
topmast and rigging, when the explosion
happened we shall never know.
For many days some smaller seals drifted
ashore along with splinters of the ship, but
Ben's remains were not with them There is
a dim hops that he has merely been disguised
at being outroared for once. Some saw he
merely thought it was Dennis Kearney, who
had come TO talk to him about the .Iabor
movement" and SO has shut himself I'D to
avoid expressing an opinion prematureiy that
may dInage his chances for the presidency.
But be all that as it may, we miss our brave
old Ben Butler terribly. For whatever his
follies or his vanities may have been he was
no weakling, he was no coward, and nothing
ever silenced him for sincla moment before.